Vaticano

2003-05-26

VATICAN - THE ROSARY OF PEACE: MEDITATING ON THE MYSTERIES WITH THE POPE’S MESSAGE FOR WORLD PEACE DAY. BOOKLET ISSUED BY PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE

Vatican City (Fides Service) – In this Year of the Rosary, the prayer recommended by John Paul II to obtain the gift of peace, the Pontifical Council for promoting Justice and Peace, has issued a booklet (in Italian) with the title “The Rosary of Peace which matches the mysteries of the rosary with the relative Gospel passages and with significant parts of the Pope’s messages for World Peace Day.
The 63 page booklet published by the edizioni Paoline – as the President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace Archbishop Renato Martino says in the introduction, is to “prompt and accompany reflection on the great need for change and conversion” on which depend the achievement of peace in the world. “The rosary – the Archbishop writes, quoting the Pope – is a prayer which transforms because it places in the one who recites it the seed of good from which we can hope for fruits of justice and solidarity in personal and community life”.
The illustration of 20 mysteries by means of Gospel passages and excerpts from the Message for World Peace Day is completed with the Litany of Loreto and concludes with a prayer to Mary Queen of Peace specially composed by Archbishop Martino. The prayer invokes the help of the Mother of Mercy that she may obtain for “governors wisdom and discernment that they may use the achievements of science and technology to promote human development respectful of creation and projects of justice, solidarity and pace”; they she may help us all “to understand that the first peace we must obtain is that of a heart freed from sin, and that, thus purified, above all in this Year of the Rosary, we may become peace-makers so that the city of man may become an industrious work shop in which the salvation of Christ, the authentic and lasting peace, is realised”. SL (Fides Service 26/5/2003 EM lines 21 Words: 295)